About This Wiki Today’s learners have come of age in the era of Facebook, Twitter, and Web 2.0. They are Digital Natives who have never known a world without computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, or cell phones. Digital Natives have never experienced: Having to delete files to make room on the hard drive. Using a floppy disk to boot a computer. Re-heating leftovers in the oven. The screech of a modem connecting. Listening to cassette tapes. Rotary dial telephones. Answering machines. Typewriters. Having to use film in the camera. Not knowing exactly what all of their friends are doing and thinking at every moment. ~Nathan Berry, Geek Dad
In the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, published in the October 2001 edition of On the Horizon, Marc Prensky wrote “…the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language.” Inspired by his words, I started this wiki as a place to share discoveries with fellow Digital Immigrants who are also learning to speak the language of today’s students. ~Renée Gammill Reference: Prensky, M. (2001). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. On the Horizon (MCB University Press), 9(5). Retrieved from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/prensky%20%20digital%20natives,%20digital%20immigrants%20-%20part1.pdf Further Reading: Oblinger, D. and Oblinger, J. (1999-2012). Educating the NET Generation. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen Barnes, K., R. Marateo, and S. Ferris. (2007). Teaching and learning with the net generation. Innovate. 3(4). Retrieved from http://innovateonline.info/pdf/vol3_issue4/Teaching_and_Learning_with_the_Net_Generatio n.pdf